Recently in Time Saving Ideas Category

Dawn Wells shows how to peel a potato, and no- that's not a metaphor. Thanks to Kathleen for the link:

(Uh, I didn't make this...)

This is hardly my more typical gourmet-inspired post, but I got an interesting email from Janella recently with a time saving idea for making a lot of omelets. Basically, you put your ingredients into Ziploc bags, then boil them. She hasn't tried this, and neither have I, have you? Would you?

She was surprised by this cooking method, but the fact is an awful lot of restaurants buy their eggs in bags, then boil them instead of scrambling them in more traditional ways. This is why you get scrambled eggs with no color (or flavor, really) so often.

I'll post the text of the email in the extended entry, because it is a real time saver, but I would recommend that if you try this, at least saute your omelet ingredients first, so that you can impart as much flavor as possible. Thanks for the email, Janella! If you hear about something you'd like to share, email me.

I prefer my omelets like this, of course:

(Photo: TPC's Omelet with grilled salmon, pepper jack and chives)

I guess it's really a form of dulce de leche with chocolate, but somehow 'chocolate crack' seems to describe my addiction to it. I learned to make it from a Brazilian friend, so whenever I come across a can of sweetened condensed milk, I find myself making this without being aware of it. It's so decadent, it makes an easy sort of fondue for dipping fruit, crackers or whatever you come up with!

Real dulce de leche is made from milk and sugar and takes hours. This technique is far faster, and is way easier.

(Just before I grated some grana padano cheese on top)

Here's another quick pasta dish I made over the weekend. You might recall that I wrote back in September about Lazy Man's Pasta, a technique where everything, including the pasta, was cooked in the same casserole dish. I loved the simplicity of it, but I thought I could improve the sauce and make it even simpler. This has a surprising amount of flavor due to the chicken broth, so even a hard-core carnivore like me enjoyed it.

I've created a new category in the sidebar called "Time Saving Ideas", to specifically address efficiency issues. I've put a few of the old posts in there already, but it will be a while before I can dig through the archives and assign others, so it's pretty lean reading for now, sorry.

If you have any ideas for quick tips, email me, and if I use it I'll send you a free tin of Survival Spice™, our award winning all natural spice blend!

A lot of people don't serve green salads much because they either can't keep lettuce fresh for more than a day or two, or like the convenience but hate the taste of the bagged stuff. Here's a few tips to help you get more life out of your lettuce:

This weekend's bulk cooking project was a few pans of Cheesy Rigatoni and Mini-Meatballs. Designed to be kid-friendly, it still had plenty of flavor for adults, too.

Pasta is a bit tough to freeze and reheat well, so if I know that I'm going to freeze it, I'll leave it even more al dente than usual, and toss the pasta lightly with oil before I add it to the pasta, to minimize sublimation in the freezer. What's sublimation? It's that nasty freezer burn, maybe I'll touch on it later this week.

Mmmmmm.... mac and cheese. Kids love it and I do too, especially with Parmesan Chicken Strips, and it's kid heaven.

This is a basic mac and cheese technique, based on a bechamel sauce, one of the mother sauces, that becomes a simplified Mornay sauce with the addition of cheese. See? You might have thought that French cooking is really complicated, but a Mornay sauce is just a cheese sauce. Okay, you can embellish a Mornay with stock or a egg liason, but still...

This stuff freezes pretty well, so I made a double batch. Here's some pics of mac and cheese in progress:

(Photo: 2 of 4 sheet pans of Parmesan Chicken Strips, ready for par-cooking.)

Welcome to another working week. As you know, I'm a big fan of making an extra batch of whatever I'm making and freezing it for later whenever possible, so when I got a request for some chicken fingers, I decided to make a bunch of them. It's such a great way to make great food efficiently and it's convenient once they're done, just put them on a cookie sheet with a little oil and brown them until they're crispy and juicy.

(Photo: TPCs Garlic and Spinach Pizza)

Sometimes you just feel like making pizza. Okay, is it just me?

I've made a lot of pizzas, but I don't make it at home much because it's time-consuming to make the dough, but it's so worth it because you can make enough to freeze in individual portions. I'm not posting a recipe today, because frankly I tend to wing it when I make my dough and sauce, but here's a couple of tips, anyway.